


Three Witches

by spinsterclaire



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Paranormal, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsterclaire/pseuds/spinsterclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Claire, Jenny, and Geillis are three modern-day witches. A big ole house, a "No Men Allowed Policy", rituals in the woods - the usual witchy norm. When Jamie shows up, things go to hell in a hand basket.</p><p>[Hit a sister up if you have any strong feelings towards a particular title. Xx]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Witches

**_PROLOGUE_ **

Frank Randall was a man of many talents, some useful and the many more not. 

If asked, he could list the names of every U.S. President, the years of their terms, their military decorations—and even, when applicable, the mistresses they’d kept. From his mother, he’d inherited a knack for cooking, a conversational French that earned such subtle approvals as, “So you’re Canadian, right?” And once, in a shining epoch of sexual glory, Frank had slept his way through Harvard’s female history majors (a skill that was not, obviously, inherited from his mother).

But these talents, while impressive, did not lend themselves to his work as a postman. At that, Frank Randall was hopelessly, endlessly inept. He delivered packages to the wrong addresses and he misplaced letters, becoming the butt of most office humor. They gave him the smallest of jurisdictions, just sixty-eight mail boxes total, but Frank didn’t mind the slight. He was uninterested in the whole business, for surely his talents were destined for something greater.

But despite his blunders, Frank Randall had yet to make the most grievous mistake of his career. Would, in fact, make that mistake on this very afternoon and ruin his assumed higher calling. It would occur within this Ohio town and at the home of one of his sixty-eight mailboxes. No legacy left behind, save the suggestion of regret (his) and decay (also his) wafting from 1743 Skye Court’s garage.

1743 Skye Court had its own delivery protocol: its necessity never questioned, so sacrosanct as to be proclaimed from Sinai. The verbiage might change from person to person, but it was always shrouded in a not-so-subtle warning:

**Under no circumstances should one deliver mail to 1743 Skye Court.**

Strange things happened at 1743 Skye Court, and no one—not even those postal heroes who fought dogs and armed Republicans—wanted to face what happened there.

“Satan’s work,” according to the religious.

“Miracles,” according to the believers.

“Not a goddamned thing,” according to the naysayers.

To his credit, Frank Randall shared none of these opinions, but had instead shown an easy ambivalence towards the going’s-on of 1743 Skye Court. In his six months and eight days as a postman, he had followed Skye Court protocol without any compulsions to break it. No curiosity, no fear—just indifference.

That is, until four days ago.

That is, until he’d spotted  _her_ at the supermarket, one of Skye Court’s three beautiful enigmas. Claire Beauchamp, standing before the spice racks, weighing the value of ground versus whole-stick cinnamon.

Immediately, Frank had felt consumed: the amber eyes, as searing as a hawk’s. The skin like milk in a glass beneath the sun. The supple, bouncing curls. (And supple, bouncing breasts, too, but that was beside the point). 

From then on, everything had changed; the compulsion was there. According to Frank Randall, the only “strange thing” at 1743 Skye Court was not a “thing” or “strange” at all, but perfect, picky-about-her-spices Claire Beauchamp. And in the four days since that first sighting, she’d become a thing Frank Randall desperately,  _ardently_  needed.

As if the gods had conspired in his favor, a letter was due for 1743 Skye Court this very afternoon. Though it was addressed to no one in particular (no return address either), Frank had done the mental calculations over a cup of Earl Grey:

**1 letter, 3 possible recipients = 1/3 = .33**

Thus, it was 33.3% likely that the letter was intended for Claire Beauchamp. And thus, it was 100% likely that Frank would deliver it to 1743 Skye Court—to that 1/3 of the enigma. One glimpse of those eyes, that skin, those curls (those  _breasts_ ) was surely worth violating Moses’ postal commandment.

Presently, Frank was in the mail truck, driving on autopilot. As it puttered through the neighborhood, Frank made an effort to wave at whomever he saw. Mrs. Fitzgibbons, Mr. Wakefield. Anyone and anything to keep himself from fondling the Skye Court letter. He called to Little Roger, the boy’s model plane tearing through the air with phlegmy, spittly sound effects. And Frank, too, felt his heart suspended in the great big sky, worried his own throat would close up the minute he saw…

Skye Court loomed just ahead. The road sign was crooked, the victim of one too many failed uprootings (the place was a hotbed of teenage mischief, the sign itself their Holy Grail). With a grimace, Frank noticed “Court” had been transformed to “Cunt”, and wondered if Claire Beauchamp was aware. He wanted to cover it before she saw.

Skye Court was quiet, as it nearly always was. Its other residents had flocked to more docile cul-de-sacs, craving peace and suburban normalcy. Places where chairs did not levitate, where lamps didn’t crash to the floor or flash Morse at 3AM. Property value declined as one’s proximity to 1743 increased and, really, it was little wonder. The neighboring homes had fallen into disrepair, their lawns colonized by tall, snarling weeds and speckled fungi. A few broken windows, forgotten bikes—as if the owners had abandoned all belongings, desperate to escape the shadows of 1743.

Frank parked alongside the curb. He grabbed his bag, slid open the door, and leapt to the pavement with a spring in his step. The mailbox was a rusty old thing at the foot of the driveway, and its missing flag indicated little use. (The proof of the protocol’s effectiveness? Or did the women of 1743 Skye Court have no need for mail? he wondered.)

Frank rummaged for the purple envelope; a perfunctory search, as its smooth, unblemished surface had never quite left his grasp. He was connected to that singular piece of mail, that tenure, however small, to the woman with the eyes and the skin and the hair (and the  _breasts_ ). Letter in hand, he looked up. One of the curtains seemed to twitch, an invisible presence watching from behind it. His heart accelerated.

Frank took his time, savoring the moment, and was grateful for this morning’s shave. A glimpse in the mirror had returned a well-kept—albeit slightly plain—reflection, but one he thought would look charming through that twitching curtain.

As he made to place the envelope in the mailbox, its door swung suddenly closed. He startled and swiped the letter back, his fingers almost crushed in the process.

“ _Jesus._ ” 

Frank chuckled, but goosebumps prickled his skin. He glanced at the window again—another twitch, a definite  _someone_  behind it (was it  _her_  there, egging him on?). He tugged and pried the mailbox open, but it slammed adamantly shut. 

Puzzled, Frank licked his index finger and held it skywards (another talent, this one from Cub Scouts). No breeze at all; the air completely stilled, drained of its energy. All of it seemed fixated on that incorrigible mailbox and the vaguely addressed envelope pulsing between his fingers. 

Round three, but still, the thing wouldn’t budge. Two hands then, a foot against the post for leverage. Nothing.

“Well, all right,” Frank mumbled, and he started up the pathway.

The house number hung above the entrance—1743 —though the 3 was missing, the ghost of it pale against the dirtied siding.  _A product of the weather_ , Frank thought.  _Of age_. But even despite the outdated 70′s exterior, he felt a hunch its absence was intentional. 

Frank reached the front stoop and looked around. The floor mat was threadbare, offering a worn and trampled, “Welcome”. It seemed false among the potted plants, their large fronds and spidery veins reaching to block the door, trip visitors (or mailmen) who dared disturb the jungly peace.

Frank was eyeing cactus needles when he saw it: a bunny watching from the bushes. Its eyes were cloudy, a milky blue. He inclined his head—“Hello, little one!”—but his greeting didn’t register, its stare unflinching and unseeing. The bunny looked at the window and retreated into the black-green dark, as if disappointed by this display of friendliness.

At once, Frank’s bag seemed alive. The mail shifted and rumbled inside it, pushing at the edges with sharp and pointed fists. A flock of caged birds, a child stirring in his mother’s womb. Frank yelped, but then: an eerie calm, just as before. He set the bag on the ground and peered inside.

With a violent rush, its contents exploded out of the bag like a swarm of locusts. The same sharp and pointed fists scratched at his cheeks, his arms, his neck, little red slices splitting his skin from head to toe. The stream didn’t stop, the bag suddenly bottomless, and he swatted the mail away with wild arms.

The envelopes assumed a new formation—a neat bundle, a magician’s trick. Envelope by envelope, they fell into Frank’s palm, fluttering downwards like shuffled cards. They settled there, a stack of hundreds, and the topmost envelope seemed to pull at his eyes. Gone were the mailing and return addresses, the American flag stamp, any clue that it was destined for one of Frank’s sixty-eight mailboxes. Instead, it said in large and girlish print:

**Go away.**

Frank threw it to the ground, but the next one was identical:

**Go away.**

The others, too, but turning to shouts:

**Go away _._**

**GO AWAY!**

**GO AWAY!!!**

Every letter, written with the same warning, and in the same looping hand. Each one vibrating with perfumed threat. Musk? Sandalwood?  _Something woodsy_ , Frank thought. Something that would trick a man into a false sense of security, still feeling numbly calm himself. He flicked through the stack until he reached the final envelope: precious and purple, his 33.3% chance of getting Claire Beauchamp’s attention. And as with the others, the original address—1743 Skye Court—had been replaced with something else.

**OPEN ME :)**

In his final moments, death seizing him, Frank Randall would wonder why he’d decided to obey this precious purple envelope. As if, like the others’ scent, its purpleness made it harmless; that the smiley face didn’t shimmer falsely, masking the weapon that lay inside. 

The flap opened easily, his finger parting the sticky line of glue. The envelope weighed heavier in his hand now, and the object inside—something as sharp and pointed as those waspy letters—shot into the air. It floated just before his face, hovered a moment. 

A letter opener.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Behind him, a voice, sweet and golden like honey. It softened the threat of the opener, now rotating slowly with the languid movements of a seductress.

“For  _Chrissakes_ , quit tormenting the bloody mailman, will you?” the woman groaned. She seemed frustrated, fatigued almost, by this shiny promise of violence on her stoop. Like ground and whole stick cinnamon were more pressing.

Frank wanted to turn around—God! he wanted to turn around, because he could smell her (the cinnamon), feel her (that hair, that skin,  _those breasts_ )—and share this small joke between them. Demonstrate that he wasn’t afraid but was in on the whole thing. They’d have a good laugh, telling their sides of the tale over a steak dinner. (“Magic? No way! Just a trick of the light.”) But something held Frank’s body captive, and he knew any exaggerations (“I thought I was going to die!”) might not, in fact, be exaggerations in the end. 

The letter opener floated closer, blade aimed at his jugular.

“Yes, I know that, but—” Claire broke from her one-sided conversation, suddenly remembering him. “Sir, you really ought to go.”

The letter opener moved closer. 

And closer. 

And closer.

“G,  _enough_! He was just about to leave. Weren’t you, Mr. Randall?”

 _She knows my name!_ Frank thought triumphantly. But then:  _How does she know my name?_

Such were his thoughts as the weapon zoomed forwards and finally pierced his skin. The oxygen left his lungs and he collapsed, the hundreds of envelopes ( _GO AWAY, GO AWAY, GO AWAY_  ) forming a carpet beneath him. He grasped for the letter opener, but his hand passed through air.

He was vaguely aware of the ensuing scuffle: plastic bags dropping to the ground, the slam of the front door, the bunny’s brief reappearance; not just one but  _three_  women hovering nearby. (“I almost dinna want to put my glasses on for this…”)

A mass of black, brown, and red crowded anxiously above him. It bickered in female voices, petering in and out as a searing white blindness.

“It was an accident!” 

“Killing the  _mailman_  with a  _letter opener_  is an accident?” Claire scoffed. “Forgive me if I find the irony premeditated, G.”

“One, I didn’t use a letter opener. I used the  _suggestion_  of a letter opener. Two, I didn’t know it’d be that sharp, okay?” 

This, from the red head, a garland of flowers in her hair. Her American accent sounded forced  _(_ oh _-kay_ ) as she counted off the last of three raised fingers. 

“And three: I didn’t kill him. He’s still breathing. Look!”

Indeed, Frank was—but only just. Something metallic gurgled in his throat, frothed at his lips and at the edge of his wound. He awaited the rush of it down his neck, slick and warm and garishly final. It never came.

Disconnected images flitted through Frank’s brain: his favorite pair of shoes, his mother’s apple pie; the old condom in his wallet, as useless and as punctured as his neck. Except his neck  _wasn’t_  punctured. Useless, maybe, but still outwardly whole, unlike the suffocating, bubbling torment ripping him apart. 

The  _suggestion_  of a letter opener. 

The  _suggestion_  of blood. 

 _Real_  pain clawing at him.

It dawned on Frank that he would never need that emergency condom. Not for a Harvard history major, not for Claire Beauchamp, not ever again. And it was this realization, above all, that made him regret this journey to Skye Court, God and Moses smiting him for his arrogance. ( _Thou shall not deliver mail to 1743 Skye Court…_ )

“Weel, he’s no’ going to last much longer,” the spectacled woman said. Her hair was black, and in Frank’s hazy state of consciousness, she hopped nervously from foot to foot. 

“Do something, Claire,” she fretted. “ _Use one_. You canna let this man die!”

“I can’t,” Claire whispered, “You know what they told me.”

“Y’know, your sense of justice has _such_  convenient timing, Janet,” G interjected. “I don’t recall you saying anything about Johnny Wolverton two years ago.”

“That was different! He wasna a wee pansy of a man delivering the post!”

Frank was mildly stung by this assessment.  _I’m not a pansy!_  he wanted to shout _. I speak conversational French! I’ve fucked 6% of Harvard’s student body!_ But these talents, while impressive, did not hold a candle to those of the Skye Court trio’s.

“Pardon me, but there’s a  _dying mailman_  on our front porch,” Claire hissed, “and unless one of you knows what to do with him, then I suggest you shut the bloody hell up!”

“We could chop him up, and mail the pieces,” G snickered. “Keep the useful bits for ourselves, of course.”

“Yer sense of humor has  _such_  puir timing, Gillian.”

Frank groaned in agreement, an animalistic and final grasp on his life.

“Dying. What an ugly little business,” G lamented. Her laugh did not match her tone, a chirp instead of a cow’s craw. “I’m  _real_  sorry, mister, but you should know better than to play with sharp objects.”

Frank suspected she was not referring to the letter opener.

“Jenny, help me carry him inside,” Claire said, finally snatching at reason. “G, get all the mail and ditch the truck somewhere.”

“The swamp?”

“That’ll do.”

Hands took hold of Frank’s body. G scurried around him, gathering the miscreant letters against her chest. From the corner of his eye, he saw the glittering menace of the letter opener, the purple envelope just beside it (no more  _OPEN ME_ , no more smiley face). G ignored the former, stepping on it as if it wasn’t there (it wasn’t; the police would find no murder weapon), but she paused over the purple envelope. She picked it up with shaking hands, muttering “Fuck.  _Fuck_!” before passing it to the others.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.”

“ _Mo chreach_.”

Their voices, all grave and haunted.

“Don’t open it yet,” Claire whispered. “I’ll need booze for this.”

And as Frank Randall died bloodlessly on the concrete, he wondered how this letter, more than his own death, could so frighten the women of 1743 Skye Court. Those worried faces studying that purple envelope. Something poisoning the air. His talents—useful and the many more not—unable to save him.


End file.
